First SSH Login and Root Password

Finding your IP and root password

Both are shown on the service's page in the dashboard right after provisioning. If you ever need to reset the root password later, the same page has a change-password action that applies it directly to the running server, no reinstall required.

Connecting over SSH

From Mac, Linux or modern Windows, open a terminal and run "ssh root@your-server-ip", accept the host key fingerprint the first time (this is normal, it is your terminal recording the server's identity for future connections), then enter the root password when prompted.

Two things to do before installing anything

• Change the root password to one you chose yourself, especially if you plan to share access with anyone else later.
• Run your distribution's update command (apt update && apt upgrade on Ubuntu/Debian, dnf upgrade on AlmaLinux/Rocky) before installing your own software, so you are not building on top of already-outdated packages.

Switching to key-based login (recommended)

Password logins work everywhere but SSH keys are both more convenient and harder to brute-force. Generate a key pair on your own machine (ssh-keygen), copy the public key to the server with ssh-copy-id, then you can log in without typing a password at all, and optionally disable password login entirely once key access is confirmed working.

The five minutes you spend on a real password and SSH keys before installing anything else is the highest-value five minutes of setting up a new server.